Age of Empires III, trouble initiallizing Direct3D

[Grubish360]

Microsoft recently had a deal on Games for Windows Live where Age of empires 3 was only 10 cents. I bought it and played it for about an hour. Now when I try to play it again it says:

"Age of Empires III requires at least a 64 MB video card. This computer appears to have a 0 MB video card. If you wish to upgrade your computer, please contact your computer manufacturer for any necessary assistance.
System information: 2000 MHz, 4064 MB, 0 MB (vendorID 8086, deviceID 2a42)"

Odd, given the fact that I have a 1.7gb video card.

When I click attempt to run, this pops up:

"Initialization Failed
Direct3D initialization failed, Possible causes:
Old or corrupted grpahics driver.
Direct3D improperly installed.
Hardware acceleration disabled.
Starting the application with the workstation locked.

Please check the log file for more information."

What makes this even more strange is the fact that it worked last Sunday, but it won't run today.

 

[Darician]

Seems like maybe an update might have happened in the interim. I would suggest you perform a System Restore to Sunday or Saturday when it did work to see if that resolves the issue.

 

[Grubish360]

I rebooted my machine and it seems to work again. I don't know why that would be the solution but it is.